Canadarm celebrated in Google Doodle

Google Doodle honours maiden voyage 31 years ago.

The Canadarm was used on 90 flights and helped develop Canada's international reputation for robotics innovation.

By:Star Staff Published on Tue Nov 13 2012

The maiden voyage of the Canadarm, first launched 31 years ago Nov. 13, is being honoured with a doodle on Google.ca

The image on the search engine’s home page shows an astronaut floating in space and adjusting Canada’s most famous robotic and technological achievement to spell out the L and E in Google.

The remote manipulator system called Canadarm made its space debut on Nov. 13, 1981, on the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia. It was designed as a sort of crane, or arm, delicately moving large pieces of equipment from the space shuttle’s cargo bay and into space.

According to the Canadian Space Agency, the design and construction of the arm marked the start of Canada’s close collaboration with NASA in human space flight — “a sterling example of successful international cooperation in space.”

Over the years, five Canadarms were built and delivered to NASA. One arm was lost in the Challenger accident in 1986.

After 30 years of successful operations, and 90 flights, the shuttle’s Canadarm retired along with the Space Shuttle program. But the arm’s legacy continues, and is heralded for establishing Canada’s international reputation for robotics innovation.

According to the Canadian Press, Google’s chief doodler Ryan Germick said the suggestion for the image came from the company’s Canadian offices a few months back.

He said his team chooses from “hundreds and hundreds” of doodle ideas and is on track to have completed about 300 by the end of 2012.

The illustration of the Canadarm doodle took “several tens of hours” to complete.

“For doodles we really try to sort of celebrate things that are exciting to Google as a culture and we think will be exciting for our users,” he said.

“We’re big proponents of technology and innovation and knowing this is one of the really cool things that Canada has done for space technology we thought it would be the perfect thing to celebrate.”

Hundreds of doodles have been created to commemorate events, important dates and to honour historical figures. Recent ones include an animated doodle honouring the late Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog, the late child educator Maria Montessori and the late Russian jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé, best known for his Fabergé eggs.

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